Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Acquires North

blog.google

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 215 posts

Re: Google Acquires North

#201

Post by chillfox »

Slackwise wrote: post #19

Smart Glasses?! Please! I've been waiting since forever. This is the only "smart" tech I've been so interested in. I already wear glasses, why not make them more useful? Meanwhile watches get in the way of using keyboards and interacting with things, and you constantly take them off. Can't use them if your hand is busy either, like holding a drink. They're not as convenient as they seem.

Same, I have been really excited for smart glasses tech, but it only leads to disappointment as no company is interested in making smart glasses for people who wear glasses. They all just want to make glasses for people who don't wear glasses.

Re: Google Acquires North

#202

Post by mleonhard »

coldtea wrote: post #180
vikramkr wrote: post #2

I guess the competition for smart glasses is heating up - I imagine google thinks apple's glasses are coming soon and they take that seriously enough to want to be prepared to compete. It will be interesting to see how this space plays out. If it's anything like smart watches, the market is going to turn around with apple's entrance, and buying north now while they're suffering gives google the tech they need to ente…

> I imagine google thinks apple's glasses are coming soon and they take that seriously enough to want to be prepared to compete. Like the half-hearted, and ultimately abandoned attempts they did for ultra-portables, wearables, tablets, etc? They even seem to lose interest in Android... I wonder why they even bother...

Because those projects keep a lot of talented workers away from competitors.

Re: Google Acquires North

#203

Post by jl2718 »

jaakl wrote: post #182
kps wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not acquihire. Employees are not moving to alphabet. Do you have inside information? The announcement implies acquihire. You don't explicitly say where people will be working for you if they're not going to be working for you. > They'll join the Google team based in Kitchener-Waterloo, Canada—North’s hometown and an area with impressive tech talent. We're excited to welcome our new colleagues, and committed to the…

That’s the public message. Their HR will probably cherry pick some, sometimes even such scammers happen to have not yet corrupt talent. Other than that the IP situation would be the only sensible explanation of this deal.

Do you think the dollar amount is real? I often see massively inflated numbers that represent the amount a company is going to invest in e.g. their own product division that will contain the acquired IP. It’s in everybody’s interest to inflate the numbers.

Re: Google Acquires North

#204

Post by cstuder »

Slackwise wrote: post #19

Smart Glasses?! Please! I've been waiting since forever. This is the only "smart" tech I've been so interested in. I already wear glasses, why not make them more useful? Meanwhile watches get in the way of using keyboards and interacting with things, and you constantly take them off. Can't use them if your hand is busy either, like holding a drink. They're not as convenient as they seem.

I'm keeping my eye out for the Bosch Lightdrive. Presented at the last CES, no specific release dates for products using that technology yet.

Re: Google Acquires North

#206

Post by leadingthenet »

rvz wrote: post #129
leadingthenet wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are Snap and Dropbox really examples of what companies should do??

For resisting to selling your company because of another competitor wanting to buy you out? Yes, that is the example I'm talking about, not what they actually do which you seem to have insinuated. You would have asked the exact same question 24 years ago when Apple was months away from bankruptcy at the time even when it was in legal battle with Microsoft and Intel. It's also not limited to those companies I mentione…

Right, but my point was that both Snap and Dropbox would’ve been better off being bought out, imo.

Netflix and Facebook, sure, but you didn’t quite use a convincing example to support the argument.

Not that I disagree with the spirit of what was said...

Re: Google Acquires North

#207

Post by michaelmior »

gffrd wrote: post #158
michaelmior wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just got an invitation today to purchase Echo Frames[0], Amazon's smart glasses. I'm a little on the fence but early reviews seem pretty promising. [0] https://www.amazon.com/Staging-Product-Not-Retail-Sale/dp/B0...

I'm curious: what's the use case you're interested in these for? And what makes these more appealing than, say, earbuds that offer the same functionality?

I wear prescription glasses already so the appeal for me is no different from that of earbuds except that I wouldn't need a separate device. They would simply replace something I already wear.

Re: Google Acquires North

#208

Post by gffrd »

donavanm wrote: post #191
gffrd wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious: what's the use case you're interested in these for? And what makes these more appealing than, say, earbuds that offer the same functionality?

The alexa and bose offerings are pretty similar from what I can tell. Functionality wise its not much more than BT headphones with mic and some limited surface controls. The benefit to both is the open ear audio. They dont impede sounds around you. This may be important to you if you need spacial awareness for things like sport and navigation.

What's interesting is that there's nothing preventing hardware companies from making open-ear audio headphones, right?

I'm starting to think beyond the "I already wear glasses anyway" use case, these may be targeted for industrial applications where (1) some form of eye protection is mandated, (2) spatial audio context is critical, and (3) having a personal device (phone, watch) is either frowned upon or not allowed.

While living in NYC, I observed that the Apple Watch's most aggressive adoption was among people whose jobs didn't allow access to phones on the regular—think restaurants, service industries, etc. The value wasn't that it was a watch, it was that it _wasn't_ a phone.

I wonder if a similar reality isn't also true of product categories like these …

Re: Google Acquires North

#209

Post by partingshots »

lawrenceyan wrote: post #134
partingshots wrote: post #120

This acquisition along with the Fitbit deal sets up Google perfectly to dominate the health wearables market.

Isn't the Fitbit acquisition being contested currently due to privacy concerns?

I highlight the Apple Watch’s FDA approval as a medical monitoring device as a counterpoint. This was in 2018. Wearables for health have been approved, legally speaking, already for some time now.

Re: Google Acquires North

#210

Post by lawrenceyan »

partingshots wrote: post #209
lawrenceyan wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the Fitbit acquisition being contested currently due to privacy concerns?

I highlight the Apple Watch’s FDA approval as a medical monitoring device as a counterpoint. This was in 2018. Wearables for health have been approved, legally speaking, already for some time now.

Fair point. I didn't realize the FDA had already started looking at the wearable space in such detail. Pretty forward-looking / perceptive of them.
Post reply on HN